conceptual-space

Eye Ball

David Bowie once admitted that playing a character allowed him to overcome shyness and force him out of himself. The use of masks and costume in music highlights the performance aspects, and draws attention to identity construction, but can seem fake to those who prefer to 'keep it real'. In this film, 'Watch Mojo' present a top ten of costumed / masked musicians who each have different reasons for playing with appearance.

How to go Back

Are the doors to the past closed? Physicist Brian Cox takes to the lecture theatre of the Royal Institution to take a look behind the science of Doctor Who. The professor meets up with the Doctor, then travels back to the exact spot in 1860 to the lecture given by Michael Faraday, the scientific celebrity of his time. Along the way, Cox experiments with time and longitude, electricity and magneticism, and wave equations and relativity.

Kaufman: Writing from Nothing

One of cinema’s most celebrated writers, Charlie Kaufman's apologetic and self-aware lecture on screen-writing is a valuable lesson in embracing the risk of failure and recognising our common human vulnerability. 'I don't know anything,' he says. 'And if there's one thing that characterises my writing, it's that I always start from that realisation'. Writing should be an honest account of identity if it is to help alleviate the loneliness of others.

Embrace that Shake

Once Phil Hansen developed the tremors, he felt he'd been robbed of his ambitions to be an artist. At first he fought the disability but soon realised he could no longer pursue a career in pointillist drawing. There seemed no way to get his ambitions back on track. And then he met a neurologist who told him that creativity was about seizing his limitations. Sometimes, it's about thinking inside the box!

Yo! Walking your Passion

Finding your passion in life is a bit like playing your yo-yo, you get ups and you get downs and you get to walk the dog if you're lucky. Then you have to deal with the harsh realities of life, like working in a boring job. So what becomes of your passion? Here, Japanese yo-yo master Black couples an inspirational performance with a talk about how he found his passion, lost it and then sought it back.

Burning Books: A Crime against Culture?

Philiosopher Julian Baggini's film Bibliocide shows him burning his old set of Encyclopaedia Brittanica. The act reminds us of our rights to read, and those who would set fire to freedoms. But the film is also about the materiality of books, and therefore the e-book revolution: 'Nostalgia for obsolete publications serves us only if we use it to remind us of the things we really value' says Baggini MORE

Dream Consciousness

We dream on average between three and seven times a night, but few of us remember much come morning. Dreams can be strange, amusing, profound and scary. They can even help us reflect on our problems. Imagine if you could control your dreams. It's called lucid dreaming — a state where you manipulate the dream narrative and AsapSCIENCE say they can train you to do just that.

Thoughts on Stalks

Surrounded by mirrors and screens to compare our reflections by, we may all occasionally grow tired of what we actually have. But what would happen if we actually lost our heads? Chicago-based artist and comic illustrator Lilli Carré explores this in her lyrical and surreal short film Head Garden. Carré is co-founder of the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation.

Lose Your Moral Compass and Just Ride?

'Who are you?' asks Lana Del Rey in her EP follow up to Born to Die. In this extended song-poem film Ride, the singer is tired of feeling 'fucking cra-azy' and trying too hard but has a war in her mind. 'Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them?'

Brands to Kill For

Lemon Andersen raps a sorry tale of how status anxiety can triumph over humanity. He recites a poem by Reg E. Gaines and discusses the oral power of poetry. Verse is more than self-expression, becoming music when given rhythm and told with the energy of the New York street life.

Your own personal slow time

'It gives the user an opportunity to reflect about the flow of time in general, and about the relationship between sensory perception, the environment, and corporeality' says interaction designer Lorenz Potthast of his 'Decelerator Helmet', a device that alters the way its wearer experiences time.

What is death really like?

This animation, based on a Alan Watts (1915-1973) lecture, explores the concept of nonexistence, the blankness against 'the necessary counterpart of what we call being'. Produced by Luke Jurevicius. Directed by Ari Gibson and Jason Pamment.

Sharing values in a secular society

'In the quiet of our minds we believe in kindness and generosity' says Alain de Botton, 'but are these values actually active?' How we share human values without religion is the subject of the philosopher's new book, Religion for Atheists.

Is remix culture creative or just copying?

Nothing is original, says Kirby Ferguson, 'We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another. Admitting this to ourselves isn't an embrace of mediocrity and derivativeness, it's a liberation from our misconceptions.'